Margaret eventually concedes that the South is not perfect, highlighting its cold weather and unlively, toiling farmers. Thornton and Margaret continue to argue these points throughout the novel. Education is fine but ultimately useless, and Southern life is too slow and dull. They view the South as filled with men too meek to stand up for their rights. The workers do not glumly accept their fate but push back when they are unfairly treated. Those who uphold the merits of the North believe it to be a place of buzzing prosperity and economic autonomy. Those from the South view the North as dirty, soulless, and hard, filled with men suffering from injustice and interminable work. Education is valued and business is considered uncouth. There are no strikes, no class antagonisms, and no downtrodden masses. The South is initially shown to be quiet, pastoral, aristocratic, and idyllic. Margaret and her parents represent the South while the Higgineses and the Thorntons represent the North.
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.Buy Study Guide The contrast between North and Southĭickens requested that Gaskell change the title of the work from Margaret Hale to North and South, and that difference permeates the entire text. With Sally Shuttleworth, Dinah Birch and Jenny Uglowįirst broadcast BBC Radio 4, 9 March 2017 Can the duo overcome their ideological differences and find love?Īlso included is the fascinating programme In Our Time: North and South, in which Melvyn Bragg and guests examine how Margaret Hale's experiences echo the author's own life, and discuss Gaskell's insights into social conflicts and the changing world in which she lived.įirst broadcast BBC Radio 4, 4-18 September 2022 But when a strike turns into a violent riot, and Thornton is put in danger, Margaret is forced to face up to her conflicted feelings. Witnessing the conditions at his mill, her social conscience is awakened, and she clashes fiercely with him over his ruthless treatment of the workers. Smoky, grimy and ugly, Milton seems like a different country - one run by men with very different beliefs to her own, like charismatic mill owner John Thornton.Ī self-made entrepreneur and pragmatic capitalist, Thornton represents everything the idealistic Margaret hates. When 19-year-old Margaret Hale is uprooted from her home in the rural South of England and transplanted to the industrial North, she struggles to adapt.
A major BBC Radio dramatisation of Elizabeth Gaskell's famous Victorian novel of pride, prejudice, politics and passion
0 kommentar(er)
